Waking Up…

I hate waking up in the mornings. Not for the reasons everybody else hates it (it’s cold, it’s dark, don’t want to go to work, etc.) but because I wake up most days and feel utterly alone. I’ve felt like this for the last few weeks – weepy and absolutely terrified of being alone. Not like alone in the deep metaphorical sense, but I’m talking physically left alone. I try and schedule things with friends everyday so at least I’m seeing one person – but even that is difficult since all of my friends have real lives with real jobs and real commitments. My life is the opposite of that and I think that’s what isn’t working.

I had this revelation the other day as I was quite literally crying to my nana who just got out of the hospital (and definitely did not need to deal with my continual emotional breakdown) that I’m homeless with a house. I moved out of my childhood home and into an apartment in an unfamiliar neighborhood very quickly with no time to really think about or process the commitment and I think all of that is really catching up with me. My new apartment isn’t my home, but neither is my childhood house anymore. I feel like I don’t have a home and I think that’s why I’ve been trying to surround myself with people who are familiar and make me comfortable – because I’m constantly in an unfamiliar setting that I’m a still uncomfortable in.

I don’t know what it will take for me to feel comfortable here and I’ve truly been trying to change my life, but like everything, it’s a circle. In order to change my life, I need motivation and I just don’t have motivation because I’m so damn unhappy all of the time. I feel totally untreatable. Try medication, it’ll make you feel better; so I tried medication and now I’m 25 lbs lighter, but not any happier… Try exercise, it’ll help with the depression; I exercise and now I have more muscle, but I’m not any happier. Move out of your parents’ house, that’ll increase your quality of life considerably; I moved out of my parents’ house and I’m not any happier. Now, I just pay for a place to stay in bed all day. At least when I was home, I had all my stuff around me any everything was familiar (my neighborhood, my room, etc.)… Now, I’m unhappy in an unfamiliar setting and that’s even rougher (and yes, rougher than having two people call me manipulative and abusive and controlling and thoughtless everyday).

A few of my closest friends have said some very interesting things to me (about me) lately that aren’t wrong, but also scare the living daylights out of me. My college roommate told me that I craved the intimacy and that’s why I went back to sleep with this guy that I’m a little bit too much head over heels for (more on that later). I think she’s 100% right. I do crave the intimacy and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that kind of committed relationship, but I would like someone to text when I’m down or even just have a person that’s a constant that also wants to have sex with me. I want some of the little things: someone to spend the night with and just sleep; someone to be able to call or text when I’m feeling down; someone to share the happiness; someone who’s happy to see me. Maybe I’m craving a relationship… That scares me because of the #commitment. Still not on board with that one yet… Then a camp friend of mine called me out on loving this horrible person that I shouldn’t love. That also terrifies me because I really have never felt this way about someone and I don’t want it to be HIM that I feel this way for.

I think in a way, falling for him is another form of self sabotage. He’s emotionally unavailable, a truly horrible person, goes against everything I believe in, and makes ME seem like the emotionally stable one, which should already have red flags going up. That being said, I want to spend all my time with him and call him when I’m upset and sleep with him at night (the Brandi Carlile song comes to mind: “I wish I could lay down beside you when the day is through and wake up to your face against the morning sun.”) and wake up with him the next morning and spend all my time him… I think I said that last one already. For some bizarre reason that literally no one can figure out, he makes me happy when he should make me the unhappiest… Which he also does. I spend my days literally thinking about him and figuring out a way to se him and planning it all out so it’s not weird. I feel like I’m in a sporting event – I’ve got analysts and plays and plots and I hate it. I think he wants to date me but he’s not in the right space and I want to date him and just be with him always but that’s not an option. As my therapist said (which was very helpful), “It’s not that he won’t date you, it’s that he can’t date you.” He even said, “If I was in a better mental space, I’d totally date you.” Every time I see him, I’m left analyzing more and trying to figure him out. I hate that he has this power to do this to me and I hate that I’m kind of turning into my mother in needing to find meaning in everything and hoping there’s meaning in everything. Does everything have to have meaning? Do we just try and find meaning in words and actions so we can keep going and tell ourselves what we want to hear? All I know is that this situation isn’t going away anytime soon, but I need to change my approach.

Because I’m always on the verge of tears. It’s not about him, but just about my entire life. I wake up with a hole in my stomach and fear the day and I just want to cry and when I think about how alone I am, I just want to cry… All I want to do is cry all of the time and that’s not healthy or sustainable or even useful. I really want to be happy and I’ve tried everything they’ve recommended and nothing is working and I feel so defeated. Like why am I even here if this is how life is going to be? I’m actively working to change my life, but nothing is changing and it’s so exhausting. I’m in a really bad place right now, but like haven’t I been forever? When do things get to change for the better for me?

Why do you Want to be Here?

Answering the tough questions even when you don’t have an answer…

One of the most common questions I get asked by my mother is why do you want to be here? It can be yelled out during an argument, spoken tearfully during an intense conversation, or spat out as a door is slammed. While I never have an answer for her, I don’t think she realizes what kind of question she’s really asking.

When she asks it, she’s asking why I want to be living in my house (my childhood home where I grew up and where both my parents still live) with my parents, where I’m obviously unhappy and where they are obviously unhappy. The truth is that this living situation hasn’t been working for quite some time – we live in a truly unhappy household. There’s a reason that young adults need to find their own places and it’s because you truly can grow out of your childhood home. In my case, the familiarity of my block and my childhood bedroom has probably dragged me into a deeper depression than I care to realize or admit, but I’m too “comfortable” to do anything about it (and let’s be real probably a little too depressed to feel like I CAN do anything about it)…

Upon reflecting on the question, I came to realize that I asked myself that on a daily basis; just I wasn’t talking about in my house, I was talking about the planet. While doing research on what happens at places where they treat depression inpatient, I stumbled on this article that had a quote that stuck with me. “I don’t want to die, but I don’t know how to be alive anymore.” Circling back to the eternal question of why do you want to be here, the only answer I can come up with is that I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to be anywhere else, either.

A little bit of context: My parents are good people who were very unprepared to raise an extremely unhappy child. It’s not that they don’t believe that depression exists, but they just never quite got a handle on my issues, which has tainted our relationship for years. A lot of times, they’ll ask me basic questions (what do you want to do? or what makes you happy?) and my inability to answer them will frustrate them. The truth is that I don’t have an answer because I don’t want to do anything and honestly, nothing makes me happy no matter how hard I try.

While I’m not at all suicidal and there isn’t any part of me that wants to die, there is a large part of me that wants to be put into a coma – or a suspended animation of sorts – where I can just take a breather from life and not have to worry about calories consumed or hours spent in/out of bed or whether or not something I say or do is going to be taken out of context in the most ridiculous of ways. While this isn’t an option, the fact that it’s a constant thought in my head is worrisome to me. Why do I want to be here? I don’t. But I have nowhere else I’d rather be…

Go back

Your message has been sent

Warning
Warning
Warning
Warning

Warning.